Ezekiel 8 to 13
You remember hearing about the bright cloud of fire God kept over the tents of the people of Israel each night for so many years while they lived in the wilderness places. Then we read, God sent His bright cloud into the great Temple at Jerusalem, and it rested over the golden ark in the inner room over four-hundred years! But most of the people did not prize God’s care over them; they chose to honor idols, as their heathen neighbors.
God was very patient to send men to show them their wrong, but at last He showed Ezekiel in a vision as though he were looking into the Temple, and could see pictures of all sorts of creeping things and idols on the walls, and men offering incense to them, and saying, “God seeth us not” (Ezek. 8:10-1610So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, pourtrayed upon the wall round about. 11And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up. 12Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth. 13He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. 14Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. 15Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these. 16And he brought me into the inner court of the Lord's house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east. (Ezekiel 8:10‑16)). Other men were worshiping the sun. At the gate he saw women crying for an idol.
Then the Lord showed Ezekiel in the vision that His cloud of glory must leave the Temple; he saw the living creatures again, showing judgment on the city, Then he saw the wonderful cloud of glory lift up from the ark, rise above the Temple and the city, and stand on a mountain east of Jerusalem. From this we know that the glory of God had left the temple before the enemy broke down its walls.
We are not told of the cloud of God’s glory being on earth again. It was over five-hundred years after, that the Son of God came from heaven to show God’s glory, and give light and life to the world, but many did not prize Him either, and He went up from the earth from the same mount (Acts 1:1212Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a sabbath day's journey. (Acts 1:12)).
Ezekiel was to show the people just how the princes of Jerusalem would try to escape from the city, carrying their treasures. He was to dig a hole through the wall where he lived, and carry bundles there then when early evening came, and his people were near, he was to cover his face and crawl through the hole with the things; as though not wanting to be seen.
Ezekiel did as God said he dug the hole in the wall one evening, carried out his things in the day, and at twilight, he crawled through the place in the wall with his bundles and with his face covered.
This may have seemed very foolish to the people who saw him. But the next morning God told Ezekiel to tell the people, that as he had crawled through the wall, so the prince of Jerusalem would cover his face, disguise himself, and crawl away from the city at night; that his soldiers would leave him, and he would be brought a prisoner to Babylon, “yet he should not see the land” (Ezek. 12:1313My net also will I spread upon him, and he shall be taken in my snare: and I will bring him to Babylon to the land of the Chaldeans; yet shall he not see it, though he shall die there. (Ezekiel 12:13)).
That prince, or king, was Zedekiah, he escaped from Jerusalem at night through a gate, or gap between two walls; his soilders left him, and he was carried to Babylon, but he could not see the land. (Read Jer. 39:4,74And it came to pass, that when Zedekiah the king of Judah saw them, and all the men of war, then they fled, and went forth out of the city by night, by the way of the king's garden, by the gate betwixt the two walls: and he went out the way of the plain. (Jeremiah 39:4)
7Moreover he put out Zedekiah's eyes, and bound him with chains, to carry him to Babylon. (Jeremiah 39:7)).
Even when God told Ezekiel of the destruction of Jerusalem, He also told him that He would gather the people again to their land, saying,
ML 05/10/1942